The single worst couch instance I’ve ever seen was actually for one of my favorite childhood games. Tomba! (or Tombi! if you’re European) was the first game I ever owned on the PS1, and I still play it once or twice a year. It’s a cute little 2.5D side scrolling metroidvania. It wasn’t super popular when it launched, but it has a sort of cult classic following nowadays. I’ve gotten to the point that I can 100% the game in about a day. Not professional speed running levels, but decent enough for a casual like me.

The sequel (Tomba! 2) was released a little while later, and I still play through it occasionally as well.

I was excited to see Tomba! 2 on the lineup back in 2014. It was in a pretty bad timeslot (the bigger, more popular games always get the better prime time slots), but I made a point of waking up early to tune in. And I got to witness the most cringeworthy couch interaction in GDQ history live.

For some context, the dude in the striped hoodie (Chibi) basically invited himself there. Chibi just sort of showed up, and the rest were too nice to tell him to fuck off. What’s the worst that could happen, right? Turns out, he was pretty consistently annoying for the rest of the couch, didn’t really vibe with the runner, had a few social faux pas moments, (like calling his own hype, which is generally considered very cringe unless the announcer calls it for a donation announcement), and all of this was while everyone was sleep deprived from being awake at like 4AM for the awful timeslot.

It wasn’t even Chibi’s first time doing stunts like this. He also invited himself to several other couches that year, and annoyed several other runners before this run started. So by the time this run happened, lots of runners were already pretty annoyed with him.